Hong Kong

I'm booked at the Regal Airport hotel in Hong Kong, because there are no hotels at the IBM rate that have available rooms in the city. The Regal calls itself the "Best airport hotel in the world", and I must admit the room is pretty nice. I'm on the top (12th) floor of the hotel, and my room has a vaulted ceiling. I have not heard any airplanes since I've been here, even though I can see the end of a runway from my window. Unfortunately there is a fog horn or something that blows every so often. It's barely audible, but when I'm trying to fall asleep it's the only thing I can hear. Staying at the airport means I have to take a 30-min train into Hong Kong to do sightseeing, $50HKD each way (about $7US), bummer...

Yesterday I wasn't too ambitious, just wanted to ride into Hong Kong and get some pictures from The Peak, which is a viewing platform at the top of the mountain overlooking Hong Kong. I was able to find it, and got there just before sunset. The sun sets over the ocean on the back side of the Hong Kong island. It kinda settles into the smog over the ocean and gets swallowed up:


I got a few photos of the city before the sun set, here's the best one:


and a few more after it got dark, because that's when the city turns really interesting, with all the buildings with their special lights:




The next day I bought an unlimited rides pass to the subway, and did some exploring. There's a guilded statue of a flower that was presented to the city when the UK relinquished control of Hong Kong back to China in 1997, and there's a flag-raising ceremony every morning at 7:30am at it:


There are a number of markets around town, little streets that are pedestrian-only where dozens and dozens of shops are set up to sell everything from live fish, fresh meat and produce, to shirts, socks & underwear. Notice the ox tongue in the middle of this photo:


Across the harbor is a part of town called Kowloon, and I spent most of the day there. One popular attraction is the Avenue of Stars, the Chinese equivalent of our Hollywood Walk of Fame. There are apparently a lot of Chinese cinema stars, but I only know a few, like this guy:

Kowloon also has the Jade market, two buildings with rows and rows of little stalls of people selling all kinds of jade pieces, mostly jewelry. I haggled with a couple vendors just for the fun of it, but didn't buy anything.


They also have a Flower market, and the Goldfish Market, with dozens of vendors selling all kinds of aquarium fish and supplies.


Every night at 8:00pm, 40 of the sky scrapers in Hong Kong and Kowloon get together and put on a light show. Their building lights are programmed to change in time with some music, that is broadcast over FM radio and played on speakers outside on the harbor. I saw a bit of it from the Hong Kong side the first night, but went to the Kowloon side to video tape the whole thing from there tonight. It's really a great show! Here's what the Hong Kong side looks like from Kowloon at night:

More Beijing

The Beijing city tour started early, but not so bright because of the haze in the air (it was misty, threatening to rain). We went first to the Temple of Heaven:

All around the grounds near this temple, people were doing tai chi, or line dancing (like the Achy-Breaky Heart), or playing badminton, lots of activity! I caught some of that on video.

Next we were off to the Tian'anmen Square:

there were THOUSANDS of people lined up to see Mao Tse Tung, and they had to wait in line for up to two hours or more just to walk past the glass-encased body. Of course, I passed on that!

Just north of that is the Forbidden City, where the emperors from the Ming and Qing dynasties lived, from the 1400s up to the early 1900s. It was one large area full of impressive buildings like this one:

I think this was the building where the emperor met with heads of state. There was a similar building behind that, which was the emperor's house, and another one behind that which was the "honeymoon" building, where the emperess lived. All along the sides were smaller buildings which housed the emperor's courtesans and concubines, more than 9,000 rooms worth of single-story buildings.

Further north of the Forbidden City is a large hill, with a building on top which provides a view down into the Forbidden City. Here is a shot of that building:

About the only thing you can really see of the Forbidden City is a bunch of rooftops, but you can see that the main buildings run down the center, with smaller ones on each side. We stopped for a traditional tea service at the bottom of the hill, then found a small family-style Chinese restaurant for lunch.

We emerged from the restaurant at around 1pm to a mostly clear sky and bright sun - what a surprise!

From there we went to the Summer Palace. The most impressive structure there is the Buddhist temple at the top of the hill, overlooking the palace:

The palace buildings are unimpressive, except for an extremely long covered walkway, which has paintings on it every few feet. I got video of that walkway, but no photos. It was very crowded at the summer palace, until we walked far enough away from the entrance and main buildings to get past all the people who were on bus tours. There must have been 20 or 30 buses there!

I had decided to go to a Kongfu Show at the end of the day, and the show was scheduled to start at 5:15, and it was about an hour of travel time to get there, so there wasn't time for any more sightseeing. We hopped in a taxi and headed back to the section of the city where the show is held. On the way, we passed pretty close to the Bird's Nest, so I was able to get one half-way decent photo of it from the highway:

We actually got to the theater quicker than expected, so we had a bit of time to go to a nearby market and haggle a bit with some vendors there. It's amazing how quickly they start to drop their prices, when they see you start to walk away! I bought an olympic souvenir from one guy for 15RMB, which is a bit more than $2 US.

This is the place where the Kongfu show is held:

The show was great, but no photos or video recording was allowed (of course).

Now I'm off to Hong Kong!

Great Wall of China

The bus tour to the Great Wall actually started out at the Ming Tombs. We stopped at the tomb of one of the Ming dynasty emperors, and saw some sights there. The building of course is the most impressive thing:

I also got pictures of some of the artifacts that they had recovered. There are more than a dozen such sites in this area (one emperor per site).

Then we stopped at a jade factory, where we saw an artisan carving a block of jade into a Happy Budda, and learned how to tell real jade from fake jade in the street markets. This is one of the larger jade pieces outside the building:

It is actually taller than I am! The tour guide told us to bargain hard, and I got a good discount on a very interesting piece, which I shipped home.

Eventually we made it to the Great Wall. The tour guide said we should leave that for last, because it would wear us out. We went to the section at Badaling which is the closest most tourist-trappy section. Still, very impressive! Here's a shot from the bottom:


I climbed all the way up to the top. This is a shot from about two-thirds of the way up, looking back down:

This is from the very top tower. Note how the trail goes down in two directions, one to the right (which is the trail I climbed up on) and one to the left (which I went down on):


Going down, it was much more deserted. That side was much steeper! On my way down, I overtook someone who had stopped to rest, and we took turns taking photos of each other on the steep steps:

By the time I got to the bottom, my legs were shaking uncontrollably.

Today I taught my class. My legs were still wobbly! They're very sore, both my calves and thighs. I've been popping Motrin, hoping to heal them by tomorrow. I've hired a private guide, recommended by a coworker, so I'll get to see a lot more sights than if I took the big bus tour. I'm charging my camera and camcorder batteries!

Beijing

The flight went smoothly, and I made it to the hotel. By the time I got all situated in my room it was dark out. I was told that the Olympic Stadium is lit up at night, so I ventured out to find it. The concierge gave me a subway map and pointed me in the right direction. The subways are brand spanking new and they have English translations for the important stuff, so I was able to get to the Olympic area OK. There were a lot of people milling around taking photos. It wasn't as lit up as I thought it would be, but it was still pretty cool. Here's the Bird's Nest:


Here's a shot of the Water Cube, where Phelps won all his golds. It wasn't lit up at all:


They did have the tower running, changing colors, flashing every so often:


I walked around snapping away, trying to find a better angle to get a clear shot of the stadium. I took a bunch of photos, but most came out blurry. This angle was probably the most lit up:


Then the lights all around the area started going out. I looked at my watch, and it was just past 9:00pm. I walked back down to the subway station, but by the time I got there it was dark - all closed up! I wandered around, and started walking towards the nearest set of tall buildings, hoping one would be a hotel with a string of cabs out front. Eventually an empty taxi drove past, and I hailed it. The driver didn't speak English, but my hotel key card has the hotel name written in Chinese on it, and that was enough to get me back to the hotel. Whew!

Loungin'

The best thing about the Grand Hyatt Taipei was the breakfast buffet, which was included with the IBM room rate. The restaurant had three stations where you could order fresh cooked food: a Japanese style breakfast, an eggs & omelets station, and a waffles & pancakes station. They also had a separate fresh fruit area, a cold meats & cheeses area (including smoked salmon and brie), and a breads & pastries section. I ate big breakfasts while staying there, and I missed it this morning.

I left Taipei at 5:15am, before the restaurant opened. I anticipated that last night, and ate a big dinner. Turns out I probably shouldn't have done that, because they served us a good meal during the first flight.

Now I'm sitting in the Cathay Pacific business class lounge in the Hong Kong airport, between flights on my way to Beijing. I had heard rave reviews of the Cathay lounge in this airport, but really it's not that much better than any of the other lounges I've been in. It does have one unique feature: some of the seats have a personal TV that you can tune to a station of your choice, and listen to using headphones. I found an open seat and set up my PC, then fired up the little TV. It lets you input your departing flight info, and will warn me when I need to leave to get to the gate on time. I had it tuned to CNN, and the sound was distorted, so I changed to Bloomberg. Pretty cool.

Next post will be from Beijing.

a few Taipei sights

I got a slightly better shot of the Taipei 101 tower when the clouds broke up a bit:


This morning I went on a Half-day tour of Taipei. It was just me and two other tourists, with a driver and our tour guide, in a little minivan type vehicle. The tour started at a traditional Buddhist temple, with some very colorful decorations:



Then we went to the Martyrs' Shrine, and watched the changing of the guards ceremony. I got most of that on tape. Here is a shot of the shrine site after the crowd had dispersed a bit:


We got to spend an hour inside the National Palace Museum, but we were not allowed to take photos or video inside. Here's a shot of the outside of the building:

There were some very interesting things inside. The most famous is a large piece of jade that is carved to look like a cabbage plant with a grasshopper on top. The museum has a website, so you can see what it looks like here:
http://www.npm.gov.tw/exh96/Dazzling/

Last stop was Chiang-Kai-shek Memorial Hall, commemorating a former Taiwan leader. He died when he was 89, so their monument to him has 89 steps:

Inside, there's a statue of him seated, similar to the one of Lincoln:


Of course we made an obligatory stop for Tiawanese oolong tea in a gift shop, and were encouraged to do some shopping... As we got back in the van to return to the hotel, the tour guide asked if we would be interested in having Mongolian BBQ for lunch, because he knew a good place. I jumped at the opportunity, and the Dutch couple that was with us agreed too. We had a great meal there! I was pleasantly surprised to find out that the Mongolian grills we have in Raleigh are actually very authentic, at least they are very similar to those in this part of the world.

Landed in Taipei

The flight to Taipei went smoothly. I was seated in row 1, business class in the downstairs section of a 747, right up against the nose of the plane! After we landed, as we were waiting to deplane, I discovered that one of the other ITSO instructors, Patrick Kappeler, was on the same flight a couple of rows behind me. I introduced myself, and we rode together to the hotel. He teaches tomorrow, then flies to Beijing on Tues; I teach Tues and fly to Beijing on Wed. He has done the trip before, and informed me that our hotel is right across the street from the main attraction here, the Taipei 101 Tower:

It's overcast here, so Patrick said it wouldn't be worth going up in the tower today. I have all day tomorrow to sightsee, so I got a pamphlet of tour options from the concierge after getting the above photo. The room is nice, comfy king size bed. This place wins the prize for biggest room safe, which can easily hold my entire laptop bag. Also, there's fresh fruit in the room: a bowl of three big plums. Alas, no coffee maker in the room. I'll have to strike out to find a coffee shop.